Biking the Baltics [BCL366 – Episode 6]

We’re Traveling by Bike for ONE YEAR

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(The events shown in this video happened during the month of July 2022).

Thanks to our trusted review team – you know who you are. And thanks to Adriana and Alain for the French subtitles. And a special thanks YOU – you also know who you are 😉

[ A film by Henry Bech – All rights reserved ]

In a couple of hours we’ll be in Estonia. From the capital of Tallinn, the distance to our destination Ushuaia in the south of Argentina is at least 6000 km. We have a lot of faith in our abilities on the bikes now, and we feel confident

That we’ll be able to ride the distance. But there are more pieces to the puzzle than distance. The weather on Sierra del Fuego, where Ushuaia is located, is rough and unstable, so timing matters. We need to arrive in January at the latest when the temperature is at its highest,

Giving us at least one month of decent weather to get there, and one month afterwards to explore the area. But exactly how long will it take to get there? It’s not like we can ride in a straight line like the one Google Maps is saying is equal to 6000 km,

And we know we’ll pass some serious mountains in the southern part of Europe. And of course we’ll pass amazing cities and so beautiful scenery on the way. We will need brakes to be able to take it all in. Are we in a hurry? We have no clue.

We are travelling by bike for one year, and we have passed through Norway, Sweden and Finland so far. We are in love with the nature and the beautiful scenery of these countries. And we have also come to love meeting local people and fellow bike travellers. According to legend, the Danish flag fell

From the sky on June 15th in the year 1219. During a battle right here in Tallinn, the Danish occupants was getting whooped by feisty Estonians until a divine moment occurred. a red banner engraved with a green Carlsberg logo descended from the sky. Wait, what? Oh, right, white cross.

The morals of these newly Christianized post-viking dudes got a boost and they managed to claim the victory. After visiting the memorial site of this epic event, we spent the rest of the day in tourist mode. We could easily spend three or four days exploring this place.

Time is ticking though, so we prepare to leave tomorrow morning. Going out of the city is always interesting. The traffic is… yeah, interesting. These roads are pretty good and well maintained. They are also super scary. The shoulder is between 40 and 60 centimeters wide and a lot of people drive fast.

I mean, seriously fast. And don’t even get me started on the giant trucks. Almost none of them stay behind us until it’s safe to pass us. And the drag they create, it almost pushes me off the road. After two hours on that scary road, we finally turn left onto this straightest

Gravel road we have ever seen. This road is 10 kilometers long and it takes us almost the rest of the way to the city where we’re going to spend the night. Riding on that dangerous main road today did not feel good. We’re going to do everything we can to

Avoid that in the future. We have tried to plan the route for tomorrow so we go almost entirely on smaller roads. Hopefully that’s going to be a lot safer. We have been in Estonia around 48 hours now. And we’re having a good time. The weather is great and the smaller

Roads we have found are peaceful and surrounded by nature. And the cost of living here is very fair. €3 One thing is starting to feel a little odd though. We haven’t been able to establish any form of communication with any Estonians so far. Not even aware when we pass other bikers.

Not a smile in the supermarket. Nothing at all. And it’s not like we think people here owe us anything. We are guests in their country and we completely respect their way of life. I guess we’re just curious. We have never been to any of the Baltic countries before. And yeah, we want to

Get to know some people. Next morning we miss a turn and accidentally end up here. We spent a good 20 minutes admiring these brainy birds. We say goodbye to the crows and connect with the Eurovelo 10. We are riding almost exclusively on forest roads. Eurovelo is a network of 17 cycle routes

That cross and connect Europe. While this is a giant leap in quality of life, the high sand content of these roads can be a bit of a challenge. Tomorrow we are crossing the border to Latvia. We’re pleased to have found a good groove here towards the final kilometers of our Esti adventure.

This is a guest house in the middle of the forest, far away from everything. The people who run this place, they go out of their way to avoid us. Like when they walk by, they do like this. There’s a stove in this terrible kitchen, but this is too weak to actually boil water

And when I go to use the Wi-Fi in the main building to plan the route for tomorrow, they rush over and lock the door. And this is the designated place to use the guest Wi-Fi. This is so strange. Language barrier may be the reason why we haven’t been able to

Connect with any Estonians, aside from this cute guy. However, it doesn’t explain this Twilight Zone-esque behavior. And in fact, data suggests that more than 50% of Estonians speak English. So we need to find some Estonians somewhere in the world within the next 11 months, and ask them what we need to do differently.

There’s something special about rolling up to this invisible line. Nothing really changes, and yet you’re in a different country. Oh wait, maybe something did change. We’ve been riding in Latvia for about 30 seconds, and coming to Warsaw on the other side of the road is an elderly man on his bike.

And as soon as he sees us, he starts wailing and smiling at us. It’s not like Estonia left us depressed or anything. That felt like being welcomed by a million kind strangers. At the beginning of our first full day here in Latvia, we reconnect with the Eurovelo 10. Or almost reconnect.

Pretty sure this is not officially part of the Eurovelo. And while it’s not very effective, it is quite cosy and scenic. By the looks of it, we’re done with rain, dirt, and gravel for the day. So we take a break to clean the bikes a little. We don’t get real

Punctures on the tubeless tires, but we do get small mini punctures, especially on rough gravel roads like the ones we’ve been on today. They seal almost immediately from the inside, so we only lose a small amount of pressure. On a long day, it does add up though,

So an occasional top up is nice. It seems we have finally left. and entered the outskirts of Riga. This has been a pretty awesome day. This is Janis. He is a Warmshowers host and we have spent the night at his place. Last night he told us stories about some of the amazing bike

Journeys he has been on. including a trip across America that we’re quite jealous about. Now he’s guiding us through the suburbs to downtown Riga. Do you like it? Yeah? It’s cold. It’s like soda with bread. soda with bread. So, how did you pronounce it? Kvass I actually like it. A different flavor.

Liquid bread is very accurate. While we explore Riga, we give each other a proposition to think about. The fact that we don’t know if we’re in a hurry or not is clouding our judgment. We have taken on a “better get going” kind of mentality. It’s the reason why we

Ended up on scary main roads, instead of going straight to the slower, safer and way more scenic Eurovelo. We have come to love the detours, the situations where we miss a turn and run into a family of crows or an unexpected beach. That’s something John from Umeå talked about.

His love for paper maps partly stems from the fact that they can be a chasillist for getting a little lost. All of these things take time. The weather in Ushuaia, however, is not gonna wait for us. So we need to decide if we’re going to change our plan again.

On the stick with the plan side of this decision is Patagonia, widely considered as one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And who knows, if we don’t go there now, we might never get the chance again. It’s time to decide. So, is it gonna be change the plan or

Stick with the plan? Changing our plans has given us exclusively good experiences so far. Our time in Sweden was a direct result of changing our minds. And it was amazing! I think we should change it. Ultimately, we’re deciding if this one year of traveling is going to be about

The destination or about the journey. I say change too. It needs to be about the journey. This is a fresh start. From now on, success is to have a great day on the bikes and enjoy the moment. It may very well be that we find ourselves in Ushuaia in six

Months, as we planned all along. We don’t know. We’ll keep heading in the general direction of Istanbul for now, because it seems like a nice route and Istanbul appears to be a cool place. That plan might change in the next week or in the next 10 minutes though.

We take our time and remember to stop and smell the flowers. Or, in this case we stop and admire the storks. Back in Denmark, these birds are pretty rare. But here in the Baltic countries, they seem to be everywhere. It doesn’t make them any less beautiful though.

We have started to design routes that draw the weirdest shapes on the map and takes us mostly on gravel roads, but also on more unorthodox ones. We see only a handful of cars every hour that goes by. We spent night number 43, far away from everything.

And wake up to maybe the most peaceful morning we have had so far. After 10 km we take our first coffee break and 5 minutes later the obligatory donut break. We have planned a 70 km ride today and the temperature is around 35 degrees. So we stop at a couple of cemeteries and

Keep our hydration in balance. Apparently Lithuania has maybe the cleanest tap water in the world. When we arrive to this tiny village we meet a new bike friend, Dalia. I started cycling yesterday and planned to cycle 4 or 5 days more. I am not such a huge cycl’er, as you

But I wish you all the best. Dalia got a flat tire so we help her patch the tube so she can get going again. Letting go of the plan has essentially removed time from the equation. And it has really straightened out every single difficult decision.

There is a calm confidence to the way we prioritise our time now. We have started to contact almost all the Wamshowers hosts that are located somewhat in the direction we are going. If they have time and space for us we are going to plan the route after them.

And it pays off right away. We are going to Juste’s place today. She lives just 25 km from the village we stayed in last night. And to get there we need to hang out with our old frenemy main road. Lithuanians drive just as fast and crazy as their Baltic siblings.

We just haven’t been around to experience it because we have been on secondary roads. And when we arrive to Juste’s place we get a warm welcome from her and her family. My name is Noele, I’m from France And I’ve been studying in Norway last year. I decided in order to

Lower the carbon impact of my Erasmus to go back home by bike. I’m supporting an association which is called Solidarity Osund. It’s a mostly retired engineer that are working into supplying water or putting pumps in Africa. Warmshowers is truly a glorious concept and we have been accepted by one more host

Host and on our way there we are riding the smack dab on the border to Russia’s little enclave Kaliningrad. So right down here at the end of this road I think we can see the river and on the other side of the river it’s gonna be Russia. That’s Kaliningrad. Putin’s war in

Ukraine has been going on for six months at this point. And we are to some extent affected by the situation Russia’s bully of leader have created. We have heard great stories about the kindness and hospitality of the Russian people. So under different circumstances we might have turned east at some point in

The near future. Our host Tadas and his family lives on a dairy farm near a small village 78 kilometers from Justes Place. We spent the evening with family. So we learned a ton about Lithuania. The similarities between our values and ideas are striking. Perhaps this nation is in fact a

Secret Scandinavian relative. Bye bye! Very nice meeting you. 15 days have passed since we arrived in the Baltics and more than 700 kilometers have rolled by. Rain rain. These three countries share a similar heritage and yet they are so incredibly different from each other. It has been a pleasure, dear Estonia,

Latvia and Lithuania. We started in Tarragona, it is south of Barcelona. And hopefully we will reach China at some point. I have something for you I’m very excited to go to the Pyrenees. This is the end of the world. And who knows? Who knows? Exclusively good experience.